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This email arrived Sunday, regarding the .

"We just got word that Brian and friends are on a plane to Los Angeles, arriving Monday morning. He was released with 7 other US citizen detainees[...]

They have been released 6 days early, largely (we believe) because of political pressure and media attention that forced the US Embassy to take action."

Also today we learn that UK Tibet protestor . Background

The Committee to Protect Bloggers reports that Brian Conley of and four other bloggers, have been arrested in Beijing. More

UPDATE: Iraqi blogger sends the following email from the campaign in support of Brian, it includes this statement from Brian's wife, part of which I've excerpted below:

Statement from Eowyn Rieke: My husband, Brian Conley, has dedicated his life to helping oppressed people communicate their struggles to the world. Since 2004 he has worked on the video blog Alive in Baghdad which produces and distributes weekly video segments about daily life in Iraq and the impact of the war.

Brian went to China to document pro-Tibet protests taking place concurrent with the Olympics. He was not participating in political actions, only documenting them as any journalist would. On August 19, 2008, he was arrested by Chinese authorities for this work, along with 5 others working with Students for a Free Tibet, Jeff Rae (who also works with Alive in Baghdad), James Powderly, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, and Tom Grant. Under China's repressive government it is illegal to record expressions of free speech and work as a journalist without state supervision.

Following , I've put a few searches of key terms Graham identified through the I built in Pipes and fed the resulting feeds into . A reminder that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ isn't responsible for the content of external sites (particularly random forum and livejournal postings). Click at your own risk.

• " "" - South Ossetia


• - Чъреба - Tskhinvali

The searches thow up .

There's further information about the cyberconflict running parallel to the . In that article a security expert wisely points out, "Use caution with any Web sites that appear of a Georgia official source but are without any recent news [such as those dated Saturday, Aug. 9, or Sunday, Aug. 10], as these may be fraudulent"

Solana Larsen of Global Voices emails to of the . If you are looking for background there's a good roundup at

There's clearly a lot of discussion of the issue taking place online in languages other than English. Relying on robotic translation is always dangerous, but Google throws up some interesting results. Would be good to have a human linguist explore them further (note in comments anyone?)

If you've seen other blog coverage of events please do leave a note in comments or email and I'll forward it to the Up All Night team

UPDATE: Extensive coverage . Civil Georgia is a daily news online service devoted to delivering quality news and analysis about Georgia. Civil.Ge is run by The UN Association of Georgia, a Georgian non-governmental organization, in frames of 'National Integration and Tolerance in Georgia' Program financed by USAID.

UPDATE II This post on Wired's Danger Room is (not all positive)

UPDATE III blog has some helpful suggestions in this regard - though it's worth noting there are more languages than just Russian involved here.

Matt Wardman, often heard on the on Pods and Blogs, has been on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Wales talking about . It's well worth a listen.

Back after a short absence, this will be the last Pods and Blogs for around six weeks as we make way for races of the Olympic and US political kind.

This week the programme featured:

• The plight of s, and the campaign do free them discussed with who spoke to us from Mexico


• A lawsuit against Google Streetview in the US prompted one US ethics organisation to Kenneth Bohm of the NLPC explained what they did.


• Consultants discover that . Even though the research was carried out with the MCPS-PRS, a music collection/rights body, Eric Garland of BigChampagne thought it pointed to the need for a different approach to dealing with file sharing.


• The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Jamillah Knowles spoke with Britain's Champion Gamers:

If you have a suggestion for next week's programme please email podsandblogs [at] bbc.co.uk

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Please note the podcasts are only available for 7-days - so please download early for your later listening pleasure.

Pods and blogs is back this Tuesday (tonight), after a break but I'm afraid after that we'll be interrupted by the Olympics and US politics till mid September.

And apologies for the break over the past two weeks - I took some leave at short notice to deal with a bereavement in the family.